Does it feel like you can’t do any further? Have you just had enough? Are you feeling like parenting is so much harder than you thought it would be? Join AMBrewster as he helps Christian parents understand the root of burnout and shares some important ways to beat parental burnout.

Have you ever really considered the nature of sin and the effect it has on your kids? Today AMBrewster unpacks his Bungee Illustration in order to help Christian parents understand the intense struggle that is parenting.

What should your children love, and how do you teach them to love it? Today AMBrewster uses creation to help Christian parents teach their kids to love everything they should.Check out 5 Ways to Support TLP.

Nine months of new experiences, discomfort, pain, and joy ushered you into the shimmering sphere of parenthood.

Since then, depending on how old your children are, you’ve experienced twenty strollers full of new difficulties, learning experiences, hardships, and happiness.

Whether you chose to educate your children formally or not, you’ve inevitably distilled and instilled more life lessons into them than potentially any other human being ever will.

And for this cause, parents like you have been celebrated in literature, video, blogs, memes, tweets, vines, and graffiti.

And yet, the question must be asked – what qualified you to be a parent?

What certification, education, training, or experience did you receive to prepare you for the monumental composition that is child-rearing?

No doubt you read baby books (as my wife and I did). Depending on your age, you may have googled everything from baby names to vaccinations to potty training tips.​But think about it . . . in order to operate a vehicle, fire a gun, or work at McDonald’s, you need training and certification. Yet every day people have children without a single clue about what they’re doing.

“Making babies is fun! We’ll worry about the rest later.”

What’s my point?​I’m concerned that we not miss this divine opportunity for some parental reevaluation.

Counselee: “My wife doesn’t respect me.”Me: “Why do you think you’re not easy to respect?”Counselee: “What does this have to do with me?”

or

Counselee: “My parents are such idiots!”Me: “You know, I don’t think the Lord’s glorified when you talk about your parents that way. ”Counselee: “You’re just like my parents! Why’s it always my fault?!”

or

Friend: “When you’re talking with atheists, it doesn’t do any good to quote the Bible to them.”Me: “Well, I don’t see any other options. God says His Word is powerful and effective. My human reasoning won’t sway them if His Word doesn’t.”Friend: “Yeah, I don’t think it works.”Me: “Maybe you need to reconsider the sufficiency of the Scripture. What’s God been teaching you in His Word recently?”Friend: “Why are you turning this on me?”

Of course, you realize that few conversations actually work this quickly. Wisdom dictates that it take a bit longer to get from the first observation to the last.

Still, over the past ten years of family counseling I can’t remember a single situation where a counselee was perfectly innocent within a conflict. There wasn’t a single man who hadn’t provoked his children to wrath or not lived with his wife according to knowledge. I never counseled a wife who’d submitted to her husband and loved her children consistently. And -– believe it or not –- I never met a child who honored and obeyed his parents without fault.

They all had grievances, they all had mental fingers to point, they all had emotional subpoenas to deliver, they all had judgment to bear down . . . but they all had responsibility too. Each train-wrecked relationship was partially their doing. Each argument was of their own making.

Counselee: “My wife doesn’t respect me.”Me: “Why do you think you’re not easy to respect?”Counselee: “What does this have to do with me?”orCounselee: “My parents are such idiots!”Me: “You know, I don’t think the Lord’s glorified when you talk about your parents that way. ”Counselee: “You’re just like my parents! Why’s it always my fault?!”orFriend: “When you’re talking with atheists, it doesn’t do any good to quote the Bible to them.”Me: “Well, I don’t see any other options. God says His Word is powerful and effective. My human reasoning won’t sway them if His Word doesn’t.”Friend: “Yeah, I don’t think it works.”Me: “Maybe you need to reconsider the sufficiency of the Scripture. What’s God been teaching you in His Word recently?”Friend: “Why does this have to be about me?”

Of course, you realize that few conversations actually work this quickly. Wisdom dictates that it take a bit longer to get from the first observation to the last.Still, over the past ten years of family counseling I can’t remember a single situation where a counselee was perfectly innocent within a conflict. There wasn’t a single man who hadn’t provoked his children to wrath or not lived with his wife according to knowledge. I never counseled a wife who’d submitted to her husband and loved her children consistently. And – believe it or not – I never met a child who honored and obeyed his parents without fault.They all had grievances, they all had mental fingers to point, they all had emotional subpoenas to deliver, they all had judgment to bear down . . . but they all had responsibility too. Each train-wrecked relationship was partially their doing. Each argument was of their own making.